Christmas ad accessibility: House Of Fraser

Our third Christmas advert accessibility review is for House of Fraser’s, “Bring Merry Back”.

To find out more about video accessibility and the other Christmas adverts that have already been reviewed, head over to our Advent countdown page.

Captions

This advert has a song playing in the background as opposed to people speaking, so there is not much information that captions can capture for deaf viewers. However, no captions have been added manually, so a deaf person would have no idea if people were saying anything or not. We’d recommend adding a caption that says, “1970’s track, ‘Who Took The Merry Out Of Christmas’ by The Staple Singers”. This information is contained within the description of the video on YouTube, which is an ideal place for a transcript or a link to a transcript.

Audio description

At the very end of the advert the text “Bring Merry Back” and the name “House of Fraser” comes up but neither is announced, so blind viewers would have no idea whose advert this is, whether it appeared on TV or shared on social media.

House of Fraser brand showing in store, online and mobile shopping options, none of which are announced

Transcript

As with captions for this video, there is not much audio content to capture in a transcript. As a result, there’s not much need for a transcript for this advert. The video is shown on the House of Fraser website and they have included the same details of the video that they include on their YouTube channel, letting viewers know the song that is playing, which is great.

Accessible video player

The page on the House of Fraser website that displays the video has a video player that is not keyboard accessible. This means anyone who does not use a mouse cannot play the video. There are a variety of reasons someone cannot use a mouse. Often, keyboard navigation is associated with blind users who cannot see the mouse curser, but making sure your website can be navigated using the keyboard also means you include people with mobility issues who can’t use a mouse.

The verdict

With some minor additions, this advert could be made quite accessible. Captions could be used to let deaf viewers know there is a song playing and no spoken content. A voiceover could be added at the end to speak the text displayed.

To find out more about video accessibility and the other Christmas adverts that have already been reviewed, head over to our Advent countdown page.